The San Diego Padres' ongoing quest for a World Series (or at least a playoff title). "You know that many runners enter a race, but only one of them wins the prize. So run to win! Athletes work hard to win a crown that cannot last, but we do it for a crown that will last forever." 1 Corinthians 9:24-25

Blow Me Away

Ok, now that I’ve got all that Park View stuff out of the way, I can get into the actual game. Well, not really. Batting practice first!

It was so cool to see all my boys out there! Unfortunately, though, I didn’t recongnize about half of our players. I was probably having trouble with the relief pitchers. This team has changed so much, I can’t even tell who these players by their faces! I can totally recognize the guys who are play all the time, but it’s the less-known less-publicized players that I have trouble with. Oh well.

One player I did recongnize was Mat Latos. He was smiling and goofing around so much! It was pretty cool to see.

I had a feeling about Nick Hundley from the first time I saw him during batting practice. He wasn’t starting, but I saw him running around, and I thought, he’s going to do something big today. I could feel it.

Just after Padres BP, Wade LeBlanc came over and signed autographs for us. He was really cute, and he seemed like such a sweet guy. I think I have another favorite player🙂

After Padres BP, we went up to our seats, which were excellent. They were about 26 rows behind the Padres’ dugout. They were sooo good! I got my 5 for $5 deal, which I forgot to take a picture of again, but I did get a picture of the cookie. The cookie is one of the best I have ever had. I love it!

The game was finally ready to get started. The relief pitchers headed out to the bullpen…

…and you can tell that there are a lot of rookies on this team :)

Tim Stauffer started for the Padres.

In the bottom of the first, Everth singled, Eck walked, and Adrian drove in Everth for our first run. It was so cool! Chase Headley, who played third, sac-flied in Eck. So, just like that, we had a 2-0 lead.

Tim Stauffer pitched excellently. I was so pleased. He had a no-hitter for four innings until Yorvit Torrealba broke it up (much more on him later). Tim allowed four hits and one home run. He walked four batters and struck out three. It was great!

Ryan Webb, Joe Thatcher, and Luke Gregerson came out of the bullpen and were excellent. The bullpen’s sucess lately induced the Padres to play a sweet video to the song “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga.

When the Rockies got that home run and we were headed to the ninth, I begged my boys to get some insurance for Heath. I’ve learned to be very nervous when Heath comes in. He always has to make things interesting, and I knew that night would be no different. But my boys didn’t listen to me.

And so, we went into the top of the ninth with only a one-run lead. You should have seen Heath sprint out of the bullpen. You could tell that he was ready to get out there and get back on that horse after blowing the save the night before. Breaking Benjamin’s “Blow Me Away” blasted through the stadium.

When the first batter singled, I assured myself that Heath was just being his usual interesting self. He stuck out the next batter, and when the runner went for second, Henry Blanco’s throw was right there. Unfortunately, Everth couldn’t get the tag down. Oh well.

But guess who came up next. Yorvit Torrealba. And his bat. It was terrible. He singled right up the middle and the fast runner went all the way home. It was like watching an accident happen. I saw it all happening right in front of me, but I couldn’t do anything about it. That ball was headed for center and that runner was going home.

Here’s when I blew up. I was mostly mad because Heath blew the save and the game was now tied. I was extremely upset because Yorvit Torrealba did it again, the second night in a row. He looked so excited, so happy over there at first and I despised him for it. I screamed at Heath, at the guys who didn’t get some insurance. I yelled and screamed and groaned and it was not pretty peoples.

I was furious, but I think I was mostly scared. I did not want to lose that game. Not after the night before. Not after all the cheering and clapping I had done for the team. I did not want to have to walk out of that ballpark with a L. I was so upset that tears were coming to my eyes, and I knew that if we lost, I would be bawling. And so, I didn’t give up faith. I yelled and I was mad, but I was doing it because I loved my team. I’m sure the people around me thought I was crazy, but they had to understand that I was so mad at them because I loved them so much.

I think I made a huge fool of myself, but I really didn’t care. There was no one but me and my team there.

After my outburst, as I was slightly calming down, I thought, we’re going to win in a way that’s special, aren’t we? I know it’s weird, but I prayed. I said, hey, if You’re going to have us lose this game, I’ll be fine. I had a blast and You really blessed me with these tickets. But maybe You’ve got something bigger planned here. Maybe You’ve got a huge surprise, a fun walk-off win or something. And I would be good with that too.

Between innings, it was Rally Time. After the Padres didn’t get anything in the bottom of the ninth, there was a video showing all these walk-offs that the Padres have had this year. First one? Nick Hundley’s walk-off homer in the 16th inning on May 17th. And I looked at my mom and went, “Oh no!” Not 16 innings!

Thankfully, it didn’t take that long. Sean Gallagher was excellent in the top of the tenth.

Bottom of the tenth, things went great. Will Venable singled on a ball that was misplayed somewhere, I think it was second base. All the night the second baseman was making these great plays against us, and I was like, “I don’t like you, second baseman!” Finally, he did something good for us!

Luis Rodriguez laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt to move Will over the second. Henry Blanco was intentionally walked to get to Tony Gwynn, but Edgar Gonzalez pinch-hit for him and got an unintentional walk. He got walked on a 3-1 count!

Next up was Nick Hundley.

Bases loaded, one out for the catcher.

What an at-bat! First one was a foul, and then four straight balls. It was so cool to see Nick’s patience at the plate, and to see each pitch miss. It was sweet!

On the last one, Nick flipped the bat and ran to first as Will came home with the winning run. I was soooooooo excited!!

It was such a relief to win. We had the bases loaded there with one out, and I thought, we CAN’T leave these guys on!! We had to get it then, when we still had some momentum, and I am so thankful that we did.

So, I have been to four games this year, and all four were wins. It’s my $6 jersey, I know it. Man, it’s gone FOUR games and won each one, so I’m definitely keeping it around. I’ll be going to my fifth game of the year in about two weeks, so I’m really hoping that I’ll got 5-0 this year. That would be so sweet🙂

On Friday, we got officially eliminated from the NL West race. It’s OK, though. We knew this team wasn’t going anywhere, and we’ve been too busy winning to really notice anyways.

We’re definitely locked in our role as spoiler though. We won our sixth straight series yesterday! It was great. We’ve won three straight series against division rivals, and we’re playing some great, great baseball. This is fun🙂

Now we’re going to play the Diamondbacks for three games at home. They’re worse than us, so if we can beat teams like the Dodgers, the Giants, and the Rockies, I think we will be able to beat the Diamondbacks.

Oh man, what a very very long entry. I’ve been working on this for like two hours. I think it’s time to end it. Well, I hope you all enjoyed it, I certainly had a lot of fun going to the game and seeing all my boys. It was so much fun!

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